A New Home
by 17marypark
Summary: Maximum Ride is always moving. It must be because she sometimes gets caught by a paparazzi. Oh, right. Did I mention she's a pop star? But this time. She thinks that she's found a home worth fighting for.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my first story so I would really like it if you would let me know some things that I can improve on.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride**

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I cannot believe we are moving again! This is like the 3rd time of the year we are moving. Why can't we just settle down in one place and stay there? Well, it must be because the paparazzi keeps finding out where I live. Oh right. I better introduce myself. My name is Maximum Ride. I am a 16 year old pop singer known as Maxine. I didn't think I could handle the popularity at school. So every time I went out for a Maxine event, I change my hair a bit, put on some make up and BOOM! People would crowd over me like the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate. You would have to photoshop my whole appearance to make me look like Maximum Ride. I mean, being popular is cool and all but I don't think I would really appreciate it if I found a camera in my shower.

But the thing is, every few months the paparazzi would find me. It's annoying as hell. Some random guy might follow me to my house after a concert or some public event and suddenly there's all these cars around my house. There's only one person in the whole wide world other than my family who knows about me being Maxine. He is the sweetest boyfriend ever, Dylan. I always tell him where I move. Because, well, you know, he's my boyfriend. No secrets. We tell each other everything. Even things that best friends don't know. We're really close. But I've never met his parents before. And, as far as I know, he doesn't have any siblings or relatives.

He visits me at least once in every single of my homes. I lived in Washington, Michigan, Nevada, Kansas and a whole bunch of other states. This time, it's Arizona. I hope I'll be able to stay there for a bit.

"Hey, sweetheart?" That's my Dad, Jeb Batchler. I was adopted so he let me chose my own last name. Cool right! "We're almost here. Might want to wake up."

"'K" I replied. I sat up and brushed of the cookie crumbs from the chocolate chip cookies I had been eating. I think chocolate chip cookies were the best invention in the world.

When the car turned the corner, we almost hit by a couple of kids riding bicycles. There were about two boys and a girl who looked about my age, one girl about 10~12, one boy about 9 and lastly a girl who looked about 6. The car suddenly stopped about a meter from hitting the youngest girl. My dad stepped out in front of the car bending down to brush off the girl's clothes. I saw his mouth moving and the girl nodded. All 6 of them left quickly. But before they could, I locked eyes with one of the boys. Something clicked and it felt like I was complete jigsaw puzzle. Like I wasn't before. His hair was a few centimeters above his shoulders and his bangs covered half of his eyes. As he heard the others ride away, he tore his eyes off mine and I instantly felt lonely.

When my dad came back into the driver's seat, he said, "We better be more careful," and drove one.

We soon stopped in front of a small house. It looked like one of the smallest in the neighborhood. All the grass in the lawn had turned brown and there were weeds everywhere. The very few flowers that were planted there were all wilted. This was definitely going to change. Until I go to school, I am going to spend most of my time fixing this place up, and it will look like a little heaven. I have a bit of a green thumb as well.

I followed Jeb into the house and wasn't really surprised. Faded wallpapers, little dead bugs and the usual. Jeb and I are going to fix this place up like nothing. We might leave soon but we might as well make this house a bit more livable.

We stacked up all of our bags in what looked like the living room. And started dusting everything; the ceiling, the walls, corners what little furniture there was, and so on. We collected all of the dust in every room and swept it outside. We decided to paint our walls with whatever colors we wanted. But first, we had to scrape off the wallpaper.

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By the end of the day we had all of our walls scraped of any paper. Jeb and I don't really talk much together so we work really fast. We ordered a quick Chinese dinner and pulled out sleeping bags. We would go shopping for everything tomorrow. That included paint, paint brushes, and any kind of furniture (we don't use that much furniture. Just maybe a bed and a desk each, a small table for dinner, chairs, light stands).

I was dead beat. As soon as I changed into my pajamas, snuggled into my sleeping bag, laid my head on a small pillow, I was sleeping.

I woke up to the smell of some Korean food. Looks like Jeb woke up early enough to order before I woke up. "Mornin'," I yawn and sat up.

"Hurry up and eat. We're going out right after to the department store soon."

"Okay," I stood up and rubbed my eyes stumbling over to where I heard his voice. Then, _squish._ I froze and looked down. I had just stepped in to my breakfast.

Jeb burst out laughing. "Good thing I bought another for later!"

"It's not funny!" I carefully sat down beginning to brush of some of the bibimpap of my feet. How the hell was I going to clean this up?

After cleaning up the little mess I made, I was in the car, bracing my self for shopping. Did I mention I hate any kind of shopping?

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**bye!**

**mary p.**


	2. Chapter 2

"So do we have everything?" Jeb and I had gone around the department store looking through the paint and furniture.

I looked at all the things we got and it looked pretty good. I mentally checked off the things we needed and thought that we had everything we needed. "I think we're cool."

"I'll take the bigger cart and go to the cashier first. I need to ask about something anyways. You can look around a bit more but take the smaller cart with you." I nodded and watched him go by.

I was turning towards and aisle when suddenly, BAM! I rushed towards the front of the cart where a girl was on the floor rubbing the side of her head. The same girl we had almost hit on the road.

I pushed up her hair checking for any abnormal things around her head. She was mostly clean except for the little pink bump that would probably disappear in a few hours. I helped her stand up and brushed of her little dress. "Try to be more careful. This isn't the first time we've almost hit you."

She looked at me with curious eyes and asked in such a sweet voice, "Do I know you? Haven't I seen you before?"

I chuckled and replied, "I met you yesterday remember? I was in the car that almost hit you."

"No, no. I've seen you before some where other than that."

Just then, a tall boy came running towards us. He was the one who I felt lonely without. While his face was impassive, his eyes were clearly etched with worry. When he reached out to grab the arm of the girl that I was holding, his hand grazed mine and I felt an electric zap shit through me. Woah. I quickly pulled my hand away like the girl's arm was poison.

He averted he attention fully to the girl and almost whispered to the girl, "Are you okay, Angel? I told you not to go running off, especially in here."

_Angel_ replied in a calm voice, "I'm fine, Fang. The girl helped me. She looks familiar."

"I h-have to go." I stuttered, "My dad's waiting. Be more careful next time...Angel." I quickly glanced at _Fang_ but stood up hastily and pushed the cart towards the cashier quickly.

But before I was out of earshot, I heard Angel say, "Oh! Now I remember! She looks like Maxine!"

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I reached the cashiers and found Jeb as fast as possible, still shaken up from what Angel had said. She recognized me. Nobody ever recognizes me. I put on this mask-like make up on and I totally change my hair. Nobody has ever even thought of the mere idea… I think… I don't tell Jeb about what happened. He's just going to make us move again to hide my identity. And I want to stay. At least until I start school, which, by the way, I'm starting in two weeks. That's the time the second semester starts. So everyone's on winter break now.

Jeb buys everything and we load everything into our car. I have no idea how it all fit. While we headed home, we drove past a girl and a boy. Both were walking and the boy was holding a bag from the department store. I recognized them imeadiately as Angel and Fang. As we drove past, I looked at them through the rear-view mirror. Don't worry, I'm not a stalker or anything. I saw Angel say something and Fang shake his head and smile. He was cute when he smiled. I liked it. What she said must have been bizzare since Fang started to laugh. God, I wanted to hear him laugh. I bet it sounded like heaven. Why am I falling for a boy I've never even met? I even have a boyfriend! I think the screaming of my fans at the concerts are driving me crazy.

We started painting what would soon be my room. We always go room by room. My walls were going to be black, green and silver with a touch of gold lining. The colors were just all over the place. No plan or drawing. Painting my room was really easy since we just did whatever. Next was Jeb's room. His would be blue and beige stripes. The stripes were up and down, but they didn't have to be straight or even, just lines. Since there were three rooms total in the house, the last room would be my music room. We found that this was the most sound-proof room in the house. I would practice all my music here for my concerts. This room, we painted pink, purple and black. We worked especially hard on this room. We first painted the walls with up and down pink and purple stripes. Then we would use the splatter effect with the black. I am going to love this room. We just finished the third room as the time was around 11:30 pm. I'm going to sleep in tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to paint what ever is left. I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

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**cya!**

**mary p.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey~~ Here's chapter 3. Hope you like!**

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We were done painting by the end of the next day. I told you we work fast. I'll skip over how the whole house looks like, but I'll tell you this; it look gorgeous inside.

You won't see me saying the word "gorgeous" another time. I still had a lot of time until school started so I started to work on the outside of the house. Jeb would take care of the finance and what ever was inside the house.

I started with the pots. The broken pots could be fixed with a little super glue, so I gathered everything that could hold some soil, but was broken in some way on the porch. Then I cut away anything that was in the way, like out of control bushes and such. That was when I noticed the girl sitting at the porch of the house across from ours. It was that little girl again. Angel. I yelled/said to her, "You wanna help?" She nodded and ran towards me. Damn. She was fast. I looked around to see what she could help me with. I saw the large bags of fresh soil. "Let's get those bags," I pointed at the soil," and spread it all across the lawn. Okay?" She nodded again and we set off to work.

With Angel helping me I got almost all of the garden/lawn finished. She was a really quick worker. We got soil in the lawn mixed and sprinkled with grass seeds so that in a few weeks, there would be beautiful green grass growing. We also cut everything that was in the way of the flowers or just looked weird. We pulled out weeds and even planted a few pots of flower with the flower bulbs I bought yesterday. What was left of the garden was the broken pots that I had to fix tomorrow.

Then I realized I was hungry. I was famished. I didn't eat lunch! I looked down to Angel, "You hungry?" I heard her stomach growl. She blushed furiously and got a sudden interest in her shoes. "Do you know some good restaurant near here?" I asked. She nodded and pointed down the street. She didn't talk much. "Wait here. I'll get my wallet and buy you lunch and dinner. Sound cool?" She smiled real big. I ran into the house, found my wallet in my bag and dashed out while yelling out to Jeb, "I'm going out for dinner!"

While Angel was leading me to whatever restaurant we ran into some kids. They looked like my age, but a lot more… not me. The girls were dressed in mini-skirts and tank-tops that looked like they were about to burst. The guys were sagging so much that if they moved I was afraid that their pants would fall down.

Angel took one look at those people and her normally carefree eyes morphed into fear. She started walking faster suddenly but we were too late. "Hey! Isn't that Fang's little sister!" I turned to see a red-head girl walking towards us. How did she walk with those heels? I would fall on my face! She kind of looked like she was the head of the little group of… you know… Angel looked like she wanted to run away, but her legs were shivering with fear. Miss Red-head bent down to Angel's height and whispered, "You can't keep Fang stuck to your side you know. Someday, I'll get him." Her voice was quiet but not quiet enough for me to not hear.

"You should pick on people your own size." I stood behind Angel like some guardian angel. But I'm pretty sure my expression made me look like a demon. Miss Red-head look up towards me and flinched. It was funny.

"Maybe I should pick on you. That seems fairer doesn't it?" She was slow to make a comeback.

"Excuse me? I'm a practically a head taller than you. Even when you're wearing heels." I looked down to Angel and said in a totally different, sweet voice, "Let's go to that restaurant you were guiding me to." Angel regained her natural self, grabbed my hand and started off down the road.

"I'll find you in school." Miss Red-head tried to make her voice sound as tough as possible. It wasn't working.

"I'll find you first!" I called out. That left her standing on the middle of the road looking a stupid as a rock. Sucker.

We reached the restaurant really quickly, as Angel was practically sprinting with joy of Miss Red-head being beaten up. You know verbally. I was looking forward to pwning her again.

The restaurant was a Japanese one. It had sushi, soba, udon, and practically every type of food related to Japan. Awesome. I loved Japanese as much as I loved Korean, Chinese, Filipino and, well, I like any type of food. I had to eat a lot of take out food to avoid the fans and reporters after and before concerts.

Angel and I ate a lot. She had a similar appitite as me, which is pretty big. You would expect that all of the food that we ordered was really expensive, but when we finished our food, the number on the bill wasn't too big. Just around the price for 4 people…

I paid and we stepped out of the restaurant all full and happen. I hadn't felt like this in a long time. While we were walking back home, it was quiet until Angel asked in her sweet little voice, "What's your name?" She looked up at me with her large blue eyes.

"My name is Max. Max Ride."

Angel giggled and asked me, "Are you Maxine?"

That question surprised me. I was definitely not expecting that. But I figured she could keep a secret and said, "Yes. I am Maxine. But you can't tell anyone. It's a really big secret."

By the time she swore that she would never tell anyone, we had reached home. Standing on the road between my house and Angel's house were six people scattered yelling out, "ANGEL!" "WHERE ARE YOU, ANGEL!" and all that. I wondered how we didn't hear them. They were pretty loud. The tall black one spotted us first. Fang. In a flash, he was bent down in front of Angel, checking if she was alright. It wasn't really noticeable on his face, but you could see in his eyes that he was really worried. I felt sorry for bringing Angel out for lunch/dinner without letting her family know.

In another flash, all of the other kids were surrounding Angel, pushing me out. Finally a tall boy who looked like the same age as Fang, with strawberry-blonde hair stood up, faced me and said, "Who the hell do you think you are, taking Angel out for 7 and a half frikin hours and bringing her back without even telling anyone. What the hell man! And who in the world are you?" He was creeping forward getting angrier with each word.

"It's that girl." A girl about 11 years old stood up and followed the tall boy. "I saw her in that car that almost hit Angel."

Pretty soon, everyone except for Fang, who was talking to Angel, was blocking my sight from Angel and Fang, glaring at me. "First of all," I started out, "I'm not a man," I said facing the tall strawberry blonde boy. Now that I looked closely I could see that his eyes were a bit cloudy… he was blind. I faced the rest and talked on, "And, it's not completely my fault. Yeah, I should of told Angel to go to her house and tell everyone that she was going to eat dinner, but you people should have checked out side for Angel at least one hour after she came outside, when we were working on my garden. I paid for her lunch and dinner at the Japanese restaurant down the road and came back with her in one piece. So you don't have to worry about anything." I crossed my arms and called out to Angel, "Bye Angel! See you tomorrow… maybe… Thanks for the help with the garden and the lawn!" I turned around and walked through the door. I turned around and looked outside before the door fully closed, and saw Fang standing up, facing my house, looking straight at me.

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**Sooo...? Whacha think?**

**mary p.**


	4. Chapter 4

**'Sup. So today's chapter is a bit short... Sorry... But the plot will get a bit more interesting in a few chapters. Until then, enjoy!**

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What happened yesterday with Fang really creeped me out. I mean seriously. He was staring straight at me. Now I'm almost shivering with fear and it's already morning. I hope I meet Angel again. She's really big help. But I hope I don't meet her family. Especially Fang.

I climbed out of my sleeping bag (my bed was still in construction…) and walked down stairs in a haze. I found Jeb already eating a plate of scrambled eggs and rice. If you think I'm weird, go ahead and say it. I like scrambled eggs with rice. They taste better with a bit of salt and soy sauce though. You should try it sometime. I guess Jeb managed to get the kitchen working. And the refrigerator. A plate of food was waiting for me on the table we had gotten at the department store. The eggs were practically calling out, _eat me! Eat me! _I dashed to the table, almost tripped over a piece of wood (I wonder how that got there), and had a spoonful of rice in my mouth in no time. My favorite breakfast. Scrambled eggs. When I finished my food in 5 minutes tops, I looked up to find Jeb staring at me, jaw dropped. "Something wrong?" I asked curiously.

"I think that was a new record. Are you that hungry?" I nodded in reply and headed to the showers. I think a cold shower will wake me up a bit.

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I stepped out in front, outside the front gate to take a good look at everything. The grass was going to grow soon, all of the bushes were nicely cut, and most of the big work was completed yesterday so all I had left was the flower pots and the vines that hanged on one of the corners of the house walls. Suddenly, I felt something tugging the edge of my shirt. I looked down to see Angel staring at me with her large, blue eyes. "Can I help?" How could I resist that voice?

"Of course, Angel. Today we're going to start with gluing together the flower pots. But you have to be careful. I don't want your very large family chasing after me because you went back how with a cut finger." Angel giggled and followed me to the porch, where there were 12 different sized pots, somehow broken, lying around.

Boy, Angel was a fast worker. Even with those tiny fingers, she was the same speed as me (we both finished our 4th pot). Although she only worked on the small pots that weren't as cracked as the ones I were working on.

I was staring, almost glaring at a small piece of my 5th pot that absolutely refused to stick onto a bigger piece, when Angel suddenly squealed, "Fang!" She set down her pot with a _thump_ and gave him a bear hug. Fang hugged her back with a small smile that looked totally cut- what in the world am I thinking. Forget everything I just said. Anyway, Angel dragged Fang to me with a humongous smile on her face saying with so much excitement on her face, "Max! Can Fang help?"

"Uh-" I stuttered. What a good start, Max. "O-of course, Angel." I glanced at Fang and said in a voice full of confidence (NOT!), "Fang… right? Just take a shovel and start digging out the roots of that vine plant." He nodded slightly and went ahead. I couldn't help but stare as he walked by. What the hell is wrong with me? Angel's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

"That's Fang. He's my older brother. But all of my brothers and sisters are adopted." She went back to her work. I followed her lead.

Pretty by around 3:00pm, I finished my last pot and looked around. Angel was working on her last pot. I grabbed a pair of garden scissors and went to Fang to help him cut off all of the vines off the wall. I gathered up my courage and walked towards him as calmly as I could. _What's wrong with me? I've never felt this nervous before when I'm walking towards a guy!_ I pushed the thought away and started to cut off the vines standing next to him.

With me helping, we finished the getting the vines out by about 3:45pm. I turned to one side to suddenly face a black wall. Oops. That was Fang. I looked up and stared at his eyes, which were staring down. His eyes were so… wow… They were so dark you could barely see the pupils. We snapped back to reality and took two steps away from each other. I was probably blushing a bit. I felt my face heat up. If Fang was blushing, I couldn't see because his face was looking down and his unusually long bangs covered his face.

He suddenly said is a quiet voice, "I have to go back home. My family will be waiting. I'll bring Angel with me. We'll probably come back tomorrow." And just like that he was walking really fast with Angel to their house. But I remembered what he said. _We'll probably come back tomorrow. _We. That means he'll come back too. Right?

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**mary p.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey~~~ I'm sorry I took a really long time to upload this chapter. I've been really distracted and busy lately. Hopefully I'll get to write more for this story and the other one.**

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School starts today. I finished cleaning up the house with Jeb, Angel and Fang. Because of the extra help the house was done faster the expected which allowed me to look a round the place a bit with Fang and Angel. In two weeks, I've never run into that girl again but I'll probably see her at school.

School. I am totally dreading the sound of that word. Why do I have to go anyway? I can be home schooled! It must be because Jeb has a job. Since I don't really know how to get to school, I'm going to meet up with Fang outside and he said he'd show me around a bit. At least that's what I think he meant. I asked him if he could help me at school and he nodded so that means yes right?

After a donut for breakfast I was out the door. Jeb was either still sleeping or out. I don't really care since I take care of my breakfast and I'll see him for dinner later. When I came out Fang was already there. In fact the whole family was there. I asked Angel why the family was going to school together, she answered that the elementary, middle and high school was all connected so everyone would go to school together then to our separate ways. Interesting. I've never seen a school like that.

"Max?" a push on the shoulder knocked me out of my mind. Fang was looking at me curiously.

"Uh what?" I probably looked really stupid right now.

"I asked where you live before coming here."

"Oh… uh… you know, here, there, everywhere."

"Tell me, is everywhere nice at this time of the year?"

"What? Oh, yeah, very nice. Clear sky. Nice sun. It's just about perfect right about now." I followed along with his joke.

"If everywhere is so nice right now, why did you come here, where there's practically nothing?" He looked at me in a way that says, 'I'm waiting for you to answer.'

"Uh, you know… just." What do I say? What do I say! What do I say!

He didn't answer.

Then suddenly a squeal rang from someone's mouth. It was Nudge. The one angel told me talked a lot. "OMG! We're here! You're going to have so much fun, Max! It's going to be like totally fab! And since you're in the same grade as Fang and Iggy, you'll probably have a lot of classes with them. But you totally have to be careful of Lissa. She's like a total witch. She, like, thinks she so cool and also thinks she Fang's boyfriend, which is totally not cool. OMG. What if you and Fang are together and suddenly she comes? And you guys can be like we're dating but really you're not. Like in those movies! But in the end the girl and the boy who pretended they were dating starts to really go out. That would be so cool if that happened in real life but that probably won't happen. Right? But then again there is possibility that you two would get-" Nudge was interrupted by a hand across her mouth.

"That's enough for now." Angel is officially my angel. No pun intended.

All eight of us, Angel (7), Gazzy (11), Nudge (13), Ella (14), Iggy (15), Fang (15), me (15) strode in through the front doors and split up to our respective home rooms. But first, Fang lead me to the office.

The lady sitting at the front desk took one look at me and her eyes lit up with recognition. She must have recognized me from my school profile picture. "You must be Maximum Ride."

"Max."

"Right. Max. Here's your ID card. Put this in your wallet so that if you get in an accident the hospital will know where to call." The ID card was very nice. It wasn't laminated like some of the other schools I had been to. "And this is your schedule. If you lose this one you can come back for another. But I'm pretty sure you'll remember it in your first week. Your locker number is 428 and your combination is 18-10-20. If you don't know how to use one, Mr. Martinez here will help you, I'm sure." Fang nodded indicating that he would. "The principal wishes to see you before you head to your home room. His office is that door over there." she pointed to a door with a plaque that said HS principal. Mr. Martinez can stay here and escort you out after your discussion with Mr. Cameron." With that she sat down and started to type on her MacBook Pro. Fang sat down on a couch not showing the slightest indication that he would leave without me. Well then, here goes nothing. I opened the door to the principal's office.

"I'm Max. The new student here." I literally stood there for a whole minute before the principal noticed me. And that was after I talked.

"Oh. Hi Max. Welcome! I didn't know you were there. I was replying an email from one of your teachers actually about a slight disagreement among the students this morning. So, I'm sure you'll like it here very much. Most of your classes are with Mr. Nicholas Martinez who is outside waiting for you. He'll show you around. I must also say that this is very small school compared to others. Each grade has about 60 or so students. A lot of the students are foreigners and some don't speak English as well as others. But please treat them as equally as you would treat your best friend. That is all. You are dismissed to go to your hometown." Uh. Ok. I walked out of the office looking at my schedule to find out where my hometown was. Fang stood up and opened the door for me to the hallway.

"Thanks." I nodded to him in appreciation.

"Who do you have for your home room teacher?" I gave him the schedule for an answer."

"Can you help me there?"

"We have the same homeroom anyways."

"Do you mind helping me get around a bit? I think I'm going to get a little lost around here."

"The system with the rooms are pretty easy. If the room you're trying to get to is N303, the room is at the north side of the school. The north is where the mountains are. The first number is the floor. In this case the room is on the third floor. The rest is easy."

"Then where's the PE classroom?" I read off the schedule where it said that was where I had to go for my homeroom.

Fang lead me to a part of the school on the bottom floor. He opened a door and there was a guy standing in front if about 10 students. He was wearing basketball shorts with a t-shirt. He looked kind of old but athletic.

When fang opened the door everyone look at us. I stared right back as if to say 'what are you looking at'. Most of the kids looked away. I think I'm improving with my glares. "You must be Maximum ride." the teacher started to talk. "I am your advisory and PE teacher. You may call me BT."

"Hey. Call me Max."

Homeroom, or advisory as they call it here, flew by. BT talked about some one to one computer thing and rules and such. It wasn't much. I met Fang outside and we started walking to our first class, Math. We went up the stairs and to the fourth floor. Fang cracked a joke bout he got his nickname and I was laughing and we turned a corner when I walked right into someone.

The person I walked was the Lissa girl. "Oh. It's you." I said in a not so nice voice I save for people I especially dislike. She is definintely not who I wanted to see. She looked at me and I saw her flinch a little. But when she took a look at fang, who's face just a second ago was put up in a small smile was back to a monotone expression.

Lissa suddenly started to flutter her eyelashes at him and said in a really squeaky, flirty voice, "Fey Nick. Fancy seeing you here~ what are you doing with her?" the last word was said with a sneer. Who the hell does she think she is?

Fang suddenly put his arm around me and pulled me close. "She's my girlfriend."

Ok. I did not see that coming.

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**So I need some help with the plot. If you want something to happen let me know and I'll try to put it in the story. Thanks!**

**-mary p.**


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